As we continue to navigate the uncertainty of the COVID-19 crisis, Notre Dame alumni, parents, and friends around the globe are rallying to care for the vulnerable, serve others, and support the efforts to bring an end to this pandemic.
Below is the latest roundup of stories from across the ND family. Read Volume 1 for our first batch of Domers doing good over the past several weeks.
Nicole (Wykoff) Condrey ’04 is the Mayor of Middletown, Ohio. She is featured in an article in the Spring 2020 issue of Notre Dame Magazine.
What is your connection to Notre Dame?
2004 graduate in Electrical Engineering; Women's Boxing and Women's Rowing teams; President of Society of Women's Engineering
How is your work impacting the fight against COVID-19?
I am the recently elected mayor of Middletown, Ohio (city of approximately 50,000) and am using my experience as a former U.S. Department of State Foreign Service Officer for emergency planning and coordination. In the midst of the unknown from our highest leaders down to each citizen, I am working tirelessly to gather facts from the national, state, and local levels and distill them into useful, actionable information for the citizens of Middletown. I host a daily 10 minute "Middie Rally" for our citizens live on Facebook for this purpose and also communicate with state and national mayors alliances and elected representatives to highlight and support creative, fiscally responsible solutions to ensure our communities and nation use this tragic pandemic to ultimately pivot and launch into stronger unification and growth than we have ever known. As a member of Team Fastrax professional skydiving team as my "day job," I am working with teammates to have surgical shields and 3D printed masks made for our public health workers and plan to skydive them into our local hospital with an American flag.
How did Notre Dame influence your career path?
The values and eternal nature of the Notre Dame family impact my decisions and actions as a community leader every day. The word "Catholic," in its colloquial sense, means "universal." Being a Catholic elected leader in our nation means I commit to making the right decisions for the universal good of my city, country, world, family, and God. These values emboldened themselves in many ways during my time at Notre Dame, most memorably through deep connections with my fellow Domers, standing shoulder to shoulder, hour after hour, cheering on our Fighting Irish for a purpose deeper than a football victory.
What message would you like to share with your Notre Dame family?
Here's to each of you putting in your own Fighting Irish efforts in unique ways. Thank you for representing our alma mater. What though the odds be great or small, Notre Dame Alumni will lead humanity to win over all. Onward to victory!
Shannon Crotty '12 is a middle school assistant principal in New York City.
What is your connection to Notre Dame?
I'm a 2012 graduate. I studied Political Science & Economics and was involved in Student Government via class council and for Lewis Hall.
How is your work impacting the fight against COVID-19?
Though I would never begin to compare my work to that of the first responders, medical professionals and healthcare staff, it's been interesting to be a part of the transition in K-12 education to remote learning. Though some schools have included online components previously, teachers and school staff are now converting weeks' and months' worth of lessons meant for in-person instruction to a virtual format, all while maintaining strong relationships with their students. I think we've also seen the importance of schools in the broader community; many are now serving as hubs for food distribution, since a majority of students rely on school for at least one of their three meals a day.
How did Notre Dame influence your career path?
Notre Dame has connected me to some incredible people, many of whom influenced my career path into education. I didn't initially work in education coming out of ND, but hearing about experiences of those in ACE and other teaching programs eventually inspired me to become a teacher. Now, I couldn't imagine doing anything else, and I'm so grateful to have been influenced by excellent educators, from ND and beyond.
What message would you like to share with your Notre Dame family?
This is an unprecedented time not only for us as adults, but also for the young people in our lives. I've been so impressed with the ways our students have stepped up and taken responsibility for their own learning, going above and beyond to make remote learning work. I've learned never to underestimate this generation of students; navigating this time of uncertainty has already made them ready to take on the many challenges their futures hold.
Makalee G. and Jaiden G. are making masks to help those in their local community.
What is your connection to Notre Dame?
Our mom is an alum (Executive MBA program 2014). Also, Jaiden participated in the NDignite program until it ended recently.
What made you decide to help fight COVID-19?
We heard about the need on the news and wanted to help our community. We also want to keep our family safe. As friends have learned we are making them, they have asked us to make some for their families and grandparents. It makes us feel good to be able to help people be safer.
What is the process for making these masks?
We purchase the items, cut the material, sew them together, and deliver them to the local Health & Community Services Department for distribution to local hospitals.
How many masks do you hope to make?
As many as we can. We have started with 50. The biggest challenge is getting the materials; stores have been sold out of elastic for weeks and even online they won't have it in stock to ship until May. Even the material to make the tie masks is difficult to find.
What message would you like to share with your Notre Dame family?
Stay Home – Stay Safe – Stay Strong ND
Roman Gusdorf ’17 is studying medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical School and helping to make telehealth services more accessible in order to ensure social distancing.
What is your connection to Notre Dame?
I am a proud Siegfried Rambler who graduated from Notre Dame in 2017 with a double major in Science-Business and Russian.
How is your work impacting the fight against COVID-19?
Due to COVID-19, there has been a rapid transition toward telehealth services, which has led to many delayed or missed appointments because of technological and communication issues. In response, I and two other medical students developed a student volunteer program to help prepare patients for their telehealth appointments at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. In this program, volunteers call patients one day before their scheduled telehealth appointments to help patients understand the logistics of their appointment and assist in setting up and testing their devices. This project helps facilitate social distancing and reduces COVID exposure to our vulnerable patients. As of writing this, 76 volunteers have already donated over 380 hours to more than 70 different Vanderbilt clinics, thereby helping thousands of patients prepare for their appointments. Students from other medical schools have reached out for assistance in the development of similar programs at their own institutions, helping expand this project’s national impact. I am happy with what we have accomplished so far, but am working to expand the program to support more patients in this fight against COVID-19.
How did Notre Dame influence your career path?
At St. Louis University High School I received a Jesuit education that emphasized to me the importance of living a life of service for others. My time at Notre Dame solidified and expanded my desire to serve others. Furthermore, Notre Dame offered me practical skills to make a larger impact, including: a strong science background to prepare me for medical school, as well as business skills and leadership experiences to gain the confidence to tackle difficult problems and lead others.
What message would you like to share with your Notre Dame family?
St. Ignatius’ Prayer for Generosity has always been a source of motivation for me, and I hope that it may be inspiring for the rest of my Notre Dame family throughout this difficult time: Lord, teach me to be generous; teach me to serve you as you deserve, to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labor and not to ask for reward, save that of knowing that I do your will. AMDG
Nick Kluesner, M.D. ’08 works as an emergency physician in a large community hospital in Des Moines, Iowa.
What is your connection to Notre Dame?
I graduated from Notre Dame in 2008 with undergraduate majors in Biology and Philosophy. It was through the intersection of these two disciplines — namely medical ethics — and my volunteering in the St. Joe ER in South Bend that sent me to medical school. The other major influences from my time at Notre Dame would be my work in El Salvador through the International Summer Service Learning program (ISSLP) (and later with Farm of the Child in Honduras), community living in Morrissey Manor, and the countless hours on the rowing team.
How is your work impacting the fight against COVID-19?
On a daily basis I'm attending to patients on the front lines of this healthcare crisis — where we have seen the disease present most dramatically. So much is still unknown about this virus and any potential treatments, as the data is starting to pour in, but my team and I nonetheless work tirelessly to stabilize these patients' critical respiratory failure. Thankfully in my community we are largely still "holding our breath" in hopes we don't experience the kind of overwhelming catastrophe that has befallen Italy or New York City, but in my administrative role as the associate medical director for our three EDs, I have been furiously working on preparations to handle what our community may need of us.
How did Notre Dame influence your career path?
There has been no greater influence on my life and career path than Notre Dame (and not just because my wife, Megan Julien '08, and I share the alma mater). The wealth of experience and perspective I gained at Notre Dame have continued to weave its way through my years of medical training and now practice. This is probably most noticeable as I sit on ethics committees at our hospital, state, and national levels working to shape the right kinds of values and approaches to patient care and healthcare operations. Never has that work been more critical than these days of unprecedented healthcare crisis. And hence, never have I been more reliant on the formation I gain from Notre Dame.
What message would you like to share with your Notre Dame family?
I think we should all recognize that the effects of this pandemic manifest in many different kinds of hardships for the people in our lives. Not every casualty of this disease is a statistic on the news ticker — in fact, that will be the minority. Lost jobs, delayed fertility assistance, loneliness, missed birthdays and holidays, unrealized athletic seasons, unraveled school years, daily direct exposure to the infectious disease — the list goes on forever. I've already seen this suffering manifest in the profound anxiety and depression of my patients seeking refuge from the isolation in the ED for help. So whether you reference Ephesians or Ellen DeGeneres: be kind to one another.
We are an Easter people and will get through this. From my vantage point in the ER on the frontline of this pandemic, we have seen the very best of humanity already: staff volunteering their time; patients requesting to be taken off the ventilator if someone else needs it; and a community rallying to safeguard each other at great personal costs. My biggest hope is that as we recover from this desolation, we seek not to return to the way things were, but carry forward from this moment with a better sense of solidarity and community.
Michael O’Neil ’93 is the founder and CEO of GetWellNetwork, a software company enabling telehealth systems for health care providers in the time of the coronavirus pandemic.
What is your connection to Notre Dame?
I went to Notre Dame for undergrad and graduated in ’93. I lived in Zahm Hall.
How is your work impacting the fight against COVID-19?
We launched a company called GetWellNetwork back in 2000 to go out to providers who are trying to deliver patient-centered care, but oftentimes don’t have the time or the tools to do that. We built a software platform that really ties very deeply into the kind of clinical systems and delivery care so that when somebody gets admitted to a hospital or has a doctor’s appointment, we know about it. If you’re a GetWellNetwork hospital or practice, you’d be prescribing the GetWellNetwork app just as you’d be prescribing medications, like a digital therapy.
We shifted a bunch of resources onto a COVID-19 team and rapidly developed content across all four of our big product lines, including the GetWellLoop, which is a digital care management mobile app. We created a bundle of loops: a self-monitoring loop, an active symptom loop, and we’re about to launch an employee loop, a COVID recovery loop and a COVID and flu prevention loop. We have this bundle of 14-day interactive plans around self-quarantine, monitoring symptoms daily, and checking in with your care team to help health care providers triage from afar and not get overwhelmed.
How did Notre Dame influence your career path?
I think when you are as blessed as we are as people who get to go to Notre Dame and be surrounded by people who are unique and diverse in one respect, but also have a common value of serving and giving back to others in your community, it becomes a filter to whatever decisions you make and becomes almost second nature. How I view the world and the decisions I make are influenced so much by Notre Dame all the time.
What inspires you during this difficult time?
Through my own lens of working with GetWellNetwork, in some ways we have a cheat when it comes to inspiration because you don’t have to look very far. We are working in an environment where every single day there are hundreds of thousands of people going through a life-defining moment in regard to their health and we happen to be touching them very intimately. Whenever you work in a business that has the kind of scope, scale, and societal impact that health care has, that part is incredibly easy because it’s right in front of our face.
Additional Domers Doing Good
Elizabeth Belton (married to Matt Belton ’08)
Elizabeth is an ICU nurse at the VA, who is directly putting her health at risk to treat some of Denver's most ill patients.
Vincent Casingal ’94
Vincent runs the abdominal transplant program in Charlotte.
“I have a great team, with shared values. We are faced with the challenge of taking care of end-stage organ failure patients. We are honored to be able to work with organ donors who give the gift of life.”
Samantha Chamberlain, M.D. ’12
ER Physician on the front lines at St. John Ascension Hospital in Detroit.
Marin Darsie, M.D. ’07
An emergency medicine and critical care physician at UW Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin.
“I hope these messages reinforce the fact that social distancing – as hard as it is – will save lives.”
Clare DeLaurentis, M.D. ’14 and Gwen Hooley, M.D. ’14
Both are second-year resident physicians on the front lines of the pandemic in New York City hospitals.
Gwen: I’m doing my residency in emergency medicine at Mount Sinai and Elmhurst hospitals in New York City.
Clare: I'm an internal medicine resident at NewYork Presbyterian-Columbia.
Gary Druskovich, M.D. ’17 EMBA
Dr. Gary stepped up to lead the Ascension Macomb-Oakland Hospital in Detroit as president in a time of significant need. He is also isolated from his family in Kalamazoo during this crisis in Detroit.
Michael Kemp, M.D. ’12
Dr. Kemp is a great doctor. He’s a surgical resident at the University of Michigan taking care of patients. Pray for him.
Michele Lehmann (married to Mike Lehmann ’10, ND men’s rowing coach)
Michele is a pharmacist dispensing drugs on a daily basis right now. She is on the front line interacting with customers and making sure they stay as healthy and comfortable as possible.
Meghan (Zink) Love ’07
Meghan is on the front lines of the COVID-19 outbreak in New York, working in a hospital as a Nurse Practitioner, caring for patients including those diagnosed as positive for COVID-19. She works during the night and homeschools her two small children during the day.
Robert O. Murphy, Sr. ’51
He recorded a Coronavirus PSA with his daughter, Marianne '78. Here's the link.
Stephanie Smiy Miller, PA-C, ’11 S.M.C.
Stephanie Miller is working on the frontline as a physician’s assistant in the emergency room of her local hospital in western Kentucky. She is driven by her faith and her desire to help others. She spends every day Being the Light to those around her.
Rebecca Robbins ’06 MBA
Rebecca is continuing her work to support homeless and struggling veterans in the Michiana region even though she is working in a secluded location in Wyoming on an energy infrastructure project. While she is unable to travel home for visits she has continued to support her 4-H community by holding online classes and has helped to facilitate getting supplies to medical professionals and to those in need in her home community.
Mark Sonnick, M.D. ’13
Working as a doctor with patients with COVID-19 in New York City.
Jessica Woessner-Hoyson, M.D. ’06
Jessica is an OB/GYN. In addition to providing the best care possible for her patients, she is helping to revamp schedules to ensure doctors and nurse practitioners can take care of their patients while also providing telemedicine from home multiple days a week. She has a three-month-old at home and her husband is a police officer. Despite her whole family "fighting on the front lines," she is an ever-shining and beautiful light!
